have to kill you. Same rules for Queenie as my girl and the kid, I’ll fucking gut you.”
Roxas rolls his eyes and pushes away from the wall. “Fine, spoil my fucking fun. I’ve had a long week of hunting down fucking dealers in the Bay for you, the very least you could do is flirt a little.”
I squeeze Aodhan’s hand before dropping it, stalking forward towards the staircase. “I don’t take on charity cases and you were working for Illi, not me. If you want payment, I’ll write a check.”
Roxas shrugs and flips the bird at Aodhan. “I don’t take rich bitch money, you might wanna get that stick outta your ass—“
Illi snarls, “Shut your fucking mouth about her before I come up there and shut it for you.”
I brush past the biker like he’s nothing because I know exactly how to deal with egos like this. No one ever mentions money if they’re secure in themselves, obviously he’s got a chip on his shoulder about the ‘easy’ life I must have had.
I hate that type of asshole.
I miss Ash and Harley being here to snarl at anyone who treats me like that but missing them doesn’t help me now so I leave the biker behind as I walk down to the workroom.
There’s a small landing at the bottom of the stairs before the workroom where Illi leaves his jacket and cleans off before he goes upstairs to his wife. Odie once told me he’s meticulous about never going home to her dirty and he’ll always have a long shower before he’ll so much as hold her hand after a bloody night of work.
It’s very sweet and entirely the reason I think their relationship works.
Illi ducks his head out of the workroom and huffs at me. “No wonder he started his shit, you’re wearing designer shoes down here. Grad some of the plastic covers, there’s blood all over the floor.”
I roll my eyes and Aodhan grabs my purse while I get dressed. He really is too much of a gentleman to have grown up here in the Bay. Roxas snarks at him as he walks past and I consider asking Lips if we can kill him.
That would be nice after this week of mine.
Once I’ve kitted up, I follow Illi back into his murder room and find the dealer already strapped to a chair there, bleeding profusely from several different wounds. He looks as though he’s been beaten with a baseball bat, though it only takes a glance at the state of Harbin’s knuckles to know it was his meaty fists that did the damage.
“Did you get anything out of him?”
Harbin shrugs. “A whole lotta shit that doesn’t concern us. Like we give a fuck about what move the Ox is making. He’s fucking pathetic.”
I shrug and bend at the waist until I’m staring the dealer in the face. “Still, could be useful for other things. Are you dealing for the Fox? He’s the most likely choice for taking over the Jackal’s drugs, what with their relationships for the parties they threw together.”
The dealer looks so offended at having me speak to him. I can read it on his face. A woman in heels and red lipstick, standing here talking about ‘men’s business.’ I’ve seen that look a million times before, it’s not hard to pick out.
He spits out blood, aiming and hitting my shoe.
I stare down at it with enough panic at the thought of what diseases he might be carrying that I think the whole room takes a deep breath, waiting for me to scream and lose my shit.
Illi has been around for my reactions to the heads arriving in boxes so I expect it to be him coming to my rescue but Aodhan beats him to it, dragging the dealer from his chair and throwing him to the ground at my feet. When the dealer tried to struggle his way to his knees Aodhan uses the sole of his boot on the back of his neck to the ground.
“Say the word and I’ll snap his fucking neck, Queenie.”
I take a wet wipe out of my purse and wipe down my shoe, just to get the blood off for long enough to finish the interrogation but I will be burning these shoes the moment I can. My skin is crawling and I want to vomit but I keep the panic from my face.
The dealer takes my silence as a death warrant. “I don’t know who the fuck the